


Ghosts

by vendettadays



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Manga Spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 16:05:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vendettadays/pseuds/vendettadays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was easy for the dead to be dead, but hard for the living to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Tenten stared impassively at the granite memorial in front of her. She was alone – a solitary ghost standing in the village memorial grounds. Her eyes travelled down the long list of names engraved on the smooth stone, where her gaze stopped and finally rested on one.

_Hyuuga Neji_.

Her breaths were even as she ran the name through her head over and over again, until it felt strange and unfamiliar. She did this everyday. It was ingrained into her daily routine, just as the ability to hold a kunai was ingrained into her. She would wake up at six in the morning, arrive by seven, and spend the next two hours staring at those two words.

And she would repeat his name again and again and again.

For the first month, Lee had accompanied her and they found solace in their joined silence. But it was the fourth month and she was alone and solace was not what she wanted. She did not know what she wanted.

_Hyuuga Neji… Hyuuga Neji… Hyuuga Neji… Hyuuga Neji…_

Her lips moved soundlessly, as she repeated his name like a mantra to ward of evil. She never said it out loud. She did not think she could say it out loud. If she did, she was sure that it would disturb the phantom feelings she felt inside her, beside her, around her.

She felt it when she had visited their old training grounds just after the war. She felt the way the air had brushed against her and whispered incomprehensibly in her ears. It chilled her when she noticed a wisp of a white sleeve in her periphery. When she had turned to face it, there was nothing there and she was left with the feeling of senbons piercing the skin at the back of her neck. She had not stepped foot there since.

But it did not matter that she had not returned to their old training ground, because she felt it everywhere she went. The feeling followed her constantly, like an unseen companion by her side and always only a fleeting glimpse from the corner of her eyes.

It followed her when she walked through the rebuilt village. It was there when she was at home. It sat next to her on her living-room sofa. At night it laid next to her in her bed.

It was next to her now.

She was becoming a textbook case for medic-nins and she knew it. It meant nothing that she knew it, because she did not know how to stop it. It was easy for the dead to be dead, but hard for the living to live.

_Hyuuganejihyuuganejihyuuganejihyuuganejihyuuganejihyuuganejihyuuganeji_.

The name blurred into one and became unrecognisable, but the paranoia persisted and the incomprehensible mumblings in her ears grew louder and louder and louder. The prickling on the back of her head intensified, until it felt like the skin of her scalp was on fire and all she could hear was the scratching and scrapping of the inside of her skull, as his name clawed around inside her mind, searching and searching.

She shut her eyes tight and her hands covered her ears.

It stopped.

The scratching stopped and the mumblings receded into silence. She opened her eyes and her breathing was ragged, as she released her hair from her tightly clenched fists. Her trousers were grass-stained and ruined, but she did not remember falling to her knees.

Tenten stood up slowly and carefully to her feet.

Two hours.

She gave one more glance at his name and turned her back and walked away.

Footsteps followed.


	2. Answers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who was he? Why was he here? Who was she?

Who was she?

Who was the girl he was following with brown hair tied in two buns and a permanent expression of loss on her face? The pain she felt was tangible to him, but there was nothing he could do.

He was restless.

He wanted to move on, but he was stuck here in the space between the living and the dead. He was dead, but not at peace. Something was keeping him chained to this unrecognisable place. There had been something left undone, whilst he was alive. But what was it?

Whatever it was, he knew that she was the key to finding out what it was.

He knew it in the way she would snap around, quick on the balls of her feet, as though she had seen something in the corner of her eyes. Her expression would change when this happened. Her eyes transformed from desolate to alert and her stance automatically shifted to fight. He had a phantom urge in his limbs to do the same and he liked her better this way. She looked best when she was ready to fight. Why, he did not know.

So he followed her wherever she went, only ever a few inches away from her body. He never strayed far. He had tried once, but after five steps away from her and he stopped. He stopped and was unable to move forward. So he moved back towards her and it was like an elastic band relaxing after it had been pulled taunt. The tension within him eased a little, but it could only be eased for so long.

His patience was waning. All he could do was observe this girl as she woke every morning, only to get up and stare at a piece of rock embedded in the ground where the pain on her face would metastasise and grow, and grow, and grow, until it became cancerous.

He was unconscious to the passing of time, but as each day ended and another began, the restlessness within him intensified. The restlessness was getting worse. It was pushing outwards, bubbling just below the surface, getting ready to erupt in torrents of molten waves. He wanted to escape. He was not supposed to be here. He was trapped in this place where _she_ was not doing anything about.

 _She was supposed to be the answer_.

She was sitting at her dinner table and she was staring at a framed photo that sat at the other end of it. He was restless. It was curling and contorting into something horrid and all he wanted to do was hurt her. He wanted to punish her for keeping the reason why he was still stuck here. Why was he here? Why him?

_Who was he?_

She continued to stare at the photo, unaware of his question.

He broke.

It broke.

The restlessness exploded from him and he lashed at the photo. The photo flew from the table and she was on her feet before the frame smashed against the wall.

And there she was again. In a defensive stance and looking like she was ready to fight, but her eyes betrayed her. She was scared. He did not feel quite as restless as he did before, it had crawled back inside and the oppressive atmosphere dimmed to a spark.

She was staring at him, as if she could see him. Her brown eyes were confused and fearful, whilst they roamed the room for sighs of… Something… Someone.

Her tongue peeked out of her mouth to wet her dry lips. He could not recall her ever speaking. He did not know the sound of her voice. Her throat was hoarse from disuse, but he heard the whisper loud and clear.

'Neji?'

He heard everything laced in that quiet, one-worded question. There was pain. There was hope. But most of all, there was love.

He was _Neji_.

She was _Tenten_.

It came back.

Blood. Death. War. Enemy. Pain. Hate. Loneliness. Ninja. Fate. Tears. Protecting. Comrades. Village. Family. Friends. Hope. Happiness. Smiles. Promises. Love. Sky.

He was empty.

Everything was draining away as it returned to him.

He was content.

He was light.

He was disappearing, but was not forgotten.

She was the answer to his question.


	3. Emptiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was not catharsis, just pure emptiness.

Tenten stared at the photo of Team Gai lying under the broken glass and wood of her photo frame. Her breath came in hard, sharp gasps and her heart was beating relentlessly. She was ready to battle, but her legs felt weak and her hands shook.

She had felt him. For a brief moment she had felt him, almost as if he was a tangible presence sharing the room with her. It was impossible, just as there was no possible explanation. What was left of her sensible thinking told her that this was only the product of her paranoia. Her rationality told her that it was just her damaged mind conjuring a cruelty for her to cope with the loss.

But she knew that it really wasn't.

She knew that she was close to going mad, but she was far from insane.

She still knew exactly what she felt.

This feeling was the calmness of a leaf's descent from a branch to the grass of their training field. It was the gentle silence of an afternoon's worth of meditation in the sun. It was the sound of the air during a spin that span a hundred times and more.

This was Neji.

She breathed out heavily and closed her eyes tight. The tears started then. They ran down her face smoothly without stopping. She could not have stopped them even if she wanted to. She lowered herself to the floor. The remaining strength in her muscles dissipated, as the last of the adrenaline disappeared and her erratic heart slowed to painful, rhythmic beats. All she could do was sit alone and in silence whilst the tears continued.

Before today there had always been a lingering sense that she was not completely alone, even when she was the only person in the room. The feelings of being watched wherever she went. The phantom touches brushing against her side as she walked. The dread that would arise suddenly inside her and disappear once the atmosphere around her calmed.

Now it was gone.

It was gone and she was truly alone.

He was finally gone. She cried harder and without a sound, because it was the only way to deal with the pain in her chest that seemed to only get worse before it got better.

There was nothing left of the day when her body finished pouring everything out of her. The skin of her face felt over-stretched and over-thin from the dried tears. She was a sponge, squeezed dry of her tears and emotions. Now, with it all gone, she felt lighter. She was lighter than she had felt in years with her heart cut free from the rocks that had been weighing her down.

She crawled to the side of the room where the picture of her teammates lied. Brushing the glass aside, she picked up the old photo. At the sight of Neji, her tears flooded the emptiness in her chest, but they didn't rise to overflow. She looked at it dispassionately. Her entire body, flesh, blood, and bones had been purged and detoxed, but she did not feel cathartic.

She felt empty - just empty as she stared at the faces of her old team.


End file.
